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DURBAN - THE weekend’s snowfall over the Drakensberg and surrounding areas could be the last cold front the province sees before spring’s expected warmer conditions.

This was according to South African Weather Service (SAWS) forecaster Wisani Maluleke, who also added that no further snow was expected to fall.

Maluleke said the expectation was that this could be the last of the worst cold fronts and we may be “saying goodbye to winter”, adding that one never knows what could happen with unpredictable weather patterns.

Maluleke said snow began to fall on Friday at midnight and continued into Saturday.

“The areas affected by snow, which the satellite showed this morning, were mostly over the Drakensberg, Underberg and Giant’s Castle areas, and even some parts of Kokstad, among other areas,” he said.

However, satellite images yesterday afternoon showed that the snow seen earlier in the day had started melting, with remaining snow seen over the highest peaks of the Drakensberg mountains.

Maluleke said temperatures at the weekend were very cold, with some areas experiencing very low minimum temperatures.

“In the Durban area, our minimum temperature was around 9°C, which is quite low for Durban temperature standards at this time of the year. Then, at Underberg, the minimum temperature went to around -7°C which is very low,” he said.

Maximum temperatures in Durban yesterday reached about 18°C.

“However, we do expect the temperatures to start recovering from today, where maximum temperatures in Durban are expected to go above 21°C. In some areas, north of Ulundi, temperatures are expected to reach around 25°C,” said Maluleke.

On Saturday, provincial Transport Community Safety and Liaison MEC Neliswa Peggy Nkonyeni issued a notice appealing to motorists to be extra vigilant when travelling in KZN as some roads were wet and slippery.

The KZN Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs said no major incidents had been reported as a result of the poor weather conditions.

By Karen Singh 

THE MERCURY

• Dr. Anthony Fauci said he's in support of Covid-19 vaccination mandates for kids going to school.
• Fauci told CNN's Jake Tapper vaccine mandates for students aren't new.
• Currently, only those above the age of 12 are eligible to be vaccinated.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he thinks it's a "good idea" to mandate Covid-19 vaccines for kids attending school.

"This is not something new," Fauci told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union."

"We have mandates in many places in schools, particularly public schools, that if in fact you want a child to come in, we've done this for decades and decades requiring [vaccines for] polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis... So this would not be something new, requiring vaccinations for children to come to school," Fauci said.

Covid-19 cases and infections have been rising, including among children, as the more transmissible Delta variant spreads.

The Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve any Covid-19 vaccine for use in those under the age of 12. Pfizer's vaccine recently received full FDA approval for use on those older than 16.

Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told NPR that Pfizer is expected to present clinical trial findings for those aged 5 to 11 years old to the FDA next month. However, he says it could take months after that to approve emergency use of the vaccine for kids.

"I've got to be honest, I don't see the approval for kids - 5 to 11 - coming much before the end of 2021," Collins said.

Some parents have been so concerned about the spread of Delta that they are asking pediatricians to vaccinate their kids under 12 prior to FDA approval.

A Los Angeles pediatrician previously told Insider that until there is FDA approval, they won't be vaccinating anyone under 12.

The Centers for Disease Control has recommended that those over 12 get vaccinated to help stop the spread of the virus.

Sarah Al-Arshani , Business Insider US

• China has produced a document that it says highlights the dangers of some companies' "996" work culture.
• 996 refers to people working 9am until 9pm, six days a week.
• The practice has come under fire from workers, some companies, and now the state.

China says a media worker collapsed in a company break room and later died from heart complications.

The person's unnamed employer was forced to pay the worker's family compensation, according to a paper published by the Chinese state ministries on Thursday.

It's one of 10 examples of court disputes mentioned in the paper, which highlights the impact of the "996" work culture - working 9am until 9 pm, six days a week - that pervades many of the country's top firms, Bloomberg reported.

The document, which was published by the Supreme People's Court and Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, defined what constitutes overtime, and provided examples of when employers failed to follow the rules.

The 996 culture has been promoted by the country's increasingly dominant tech founders, including Alibaba's Jack Ma, but has seeped into other sectors. Ma once described the practise as a "blessing" for younger workers.

It has recently been drawing criticism from the Chinese public, and some companies, for its impact on workers and wider productivity.

By law, Chinese workers have to be paid extra when they work more than 8 hours a day, but firms have been avoiding paying them by exploiting loopholes, the document said, as reported by Bloomberg.

One company decided that workers only qualified for overtime pay after 9pm, while another insisted that any request needed signing off by a manager, the document said.

The document is part of a wider effort by the state to develop clearer guidelines on overtime, and clamp down on firms who don't pay workers what they are legally entitled to. More generally, General Secretary Xi Jinping is trying to realign the relationship between Chinese corporations and the state by placing increasing restrictions on private enterprises.

Workers have also been calling for change.

Exhausted and disenfranchised with endless work hours, Gen Z and millennials are taking to social media to promote the idea of "tang ping," which translates to lying flat.

The spiritual movement encourages people to take more time to unwind, and be happy with their current life, rather than chasing money or long work hours.

Stephen Jones , Business Insider US

Covid-19 is not a respiratory illness, as widely accepted, but a vascular one, claims a study.

The study, led by the University of California-San Diego, could explain blood clots in some Covid-19 patients and other issues like "Covid feet", which are not typical symptoms of a respiratory illness, Euronews reported.

The findings, published in the journal Circulation Research, showed how the virus attacks the vascular or circulatory system.

The S protein of the virus, the spike that forms the crown, attacks the receptor ACE2, damaging the mitocondrias that generate the energy of the cells, thus damaging the endothelium, which lines the blood vessel.

This is something that has already been observed, but what wasn't previously known is the exact mechanism and role of the S protein. This protein is replicated by all of the currently available vaccines, the team said.

For the study, the team created a pseudovirus for the study, which only had the S protein but not the rest of the virus, to show in the lab that this protein is enough by itself to cause disease.

The effects on the respiratory system are a consequence of the inflammation of the vascular tissue in the lungs.

"A lot of people think of it as a respiratory disease, but it's really a vascular disease," Uri Manor, assistant research professor, at the varsity was quoted as saying.

"That could explain why some people have strokes, and why some people have issues in other parts of the body. The commonality between them is that they all have vascular underpinnings," Manor added.

According to Professor Rafael Manez Mendiluce, head of intensive care at Bellvitge University Hospital in Spain, the vascular problem could be related to the inflammatory response of the patient's immune system.

IANS

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